


Not Quite a Raven

by onArete



Series: Taakitz Week 2018 [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: (but not too familiar), 2taakitz2week, Day 2, F/M, M/M, Reaper Squad, Taakitz Week 2018, pets and familiars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-23 07:20:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16154294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onArete/pseuds/onArete
Summary: Kravitz is late for work when his cat decides to tag along.





	Not Quite a Raven

**Author's Note:**

> Day 2 of Taakitz Week 2018!! From the prompt "pets and familiars (but not too familiar)." I had fun writing this-- enjoy!

Kravitz swears that cat is going to be the death of him.  Not literally, of course-- he’s well past the veil. But if Caleb gives him one more smug look--

 

“It’s a little embarrassing to hear my boss talking to a cat, right?” asks Lup, strolling into their apartment without knocking.  She doesn’t take off her reaper robe, just scratches Caleb under the chin. “We’re supposed to be there soon, Ghost Rider--”

 

“Please don’t call--”

 

“I assume Taako’s off at his wonderfully awesome magic school?”

 

“Yeah, why--”

 

“If he were here he’d already be teasing you mercilessly about the cat.”

 

Caleb meows.

 

Lup scoops him up, and Kravitz grabs the cloak he’d been sitting on.  Swings it around his shoulders. “Anything interesting on today’s agenda?”

 

Lup doesn’t even look at him, too busy petting the cat.  “Fuck if I know. Hey, can we have Caleb as our mascot?”

 

“Absolutely not.  Cats aren’t ravens.”

 

“Ugh, fine.”  She puts him back down, swings her cloak around dramatically.  “Let’s blow this joint.”

 

A scythe appears in her hands, and she swings it downward.  No portal appears.

 

“Pan-fucking-dammit,” curses Lup, and tries again.  No luck.

 

Kravitz looks over her posture.  “Feet a little further apart. Shoulders back-- no, not that far-- you can fucking disjoint it too--  **fuck Lup stop!** ”

 

A portal rips slowly through the air with an unpleasant tearing noise, and Barry sticks his face through.  “Hey, uh, I signed your timecards, but you should probably get over here soon.”

 

“Thanks babe,” Lup says, stepping through Barry’s portal instead of making her own.

 

“Did you scare him with the shoulder thing again?” he asks, looking at Kravitz’s face.

 

“I-- no,” he protests.

 

Lup laughs.  “Sure, Skeletor.  Whatever. C’mon over.”

 

He rolls his eyes, jumps through Barry’s portal.  There’s another unpleasant sound as he closes it agonizingly slowly.  Worse than fantasy velcro.

 

“We should get back to the timecards,” Barry suggests as his scythe vanishes.  “I don’t know how long it’ll hold.”

 

“Cool,” says Lup, falling into step with him.

 

“Barry,” Kravitz says, following after them.  “Time cards run on soul-attuning magic.”

 

He at least has the decency to look ashamed.  “Uh. Yeah.”

 

“And what class of magic does soul magic fall under?”

 

“...necromancy.”

 

“And what’s our  _ job _ ?”

 

“...to stop necromancy.”

 

“Hey,” Lup interjects, walking backwards so she can face Kravitz.  “Do you want to be marked late? Get your pay docked for the first time in, like, millenia?  What if you had to do overtime, huh? Taako’s always complaining that he doesn’t see you enough as is.”

 

Kravitz’s response is cut off by a quiet meow.

 

“What the fuck?” says Lup.

 

He spins, scythe springing into his hand.

 

Standing behind them in the hallway is a small gray cat.

 

“Caleb?!”

 

“Holy shit, Caleb!”  Lup rushes over to the cat, scoops him up.  “He must’ve followed us through the portal!”

 

It’s just after nine in the morning and Kravitz can’t work up the energy to yell at Barry for not watching his portal.  All he can think to say is, “But Caleb’s  _ alive _ .”

 

“So’re we--” says Lup, and stops.  “Well. I guess not. But Taako comes over here with you sometimes, and he’s alive, so...”

 

Caleb meows, and Kravitz glares at him.  For an animal named after a detective, he’s understandably perceptive.  But that doesn’t mean he has to call Kravitz out every time he re-realizes how much he loves Taako.

 

“So, we have a, uh, mascot for the day,” Barry says with an attempt at a smile.

 

Kravitz sighs.  They’re already behind schedule, and don’t have time to put Caleb back.  “Just... keep an eye on him, okay? I don’t, uh... Taako likes him.”

 

The cat meows.

 

“Maybe you should watch him,” Lup says, and shoves him into Kravitz’s lowered hood.  “He likes you. Plus, I got a timecard to fill.”

 

Kravitz sprints after her, one hand desperately holding Caleb in his robe.  “Lup. Lup!”

 

\----------------------------

 

Despite being a cat and not a raven, Caleb’s not a bad mascot.  He meows in a very satisfying way at the cult recruiter that they take down.  He nuzzles up against Lup’s ankles when she opens a portal on the second try. He steals Barry’s lunch.

 

“One last stop, folks,” says Kravitz, checking their agenda.  It’s getting late and he’s tired and really just wants to go home.  “Some... cult attempting a minor summoning. They haven’t even finished the runes yet.”

 

“Haha, suckers,” snickers Lup.

 

 “Barry, will you do the honors?”

 

Barry’s scythe tears a painfully slow portal through the planes.  The three of them step through menacingly, dressed in bones and robes (black, red, and denim respectively) and brilliantly white smiles.

 

A book pops into existence in front of Kravitz.  “Cult of the Higher Realm, you have been charged with attempted necromancy.  Your souls are forfeit to the Raven Queen. Come peaceably now or your sentence will be prolonged.”

 

Cults never go out easy, no matter how big of a spook factor the reapers use.  There’s probably two dozen cultists, and so Barry and Lup and Kravitz get to work.

 

Their scythes tear through the members of the cult, ripping out souls and flinging them into the Astral Plane.  Barry fucks up their summoning circle. Lup laughs, hands ringed in flame.

 

The small warm weight against Kravitz’s back that is Caleb is suddenly no longer there.

 

The worst thing about cats, though, is how damn curious they are.  It’s cute, usually, when Kravitz is at home and their cats are interested in the fantasy television or more food or the box that the takeout came in.  It’s less good when the cat is very interested in necromancy.

 

“Caleb--” he shouts, turning to try and catch him.  A stray spell hits Kravitz’s arm, shattering the bone and sending his scythe flying.

 

He grits his teeth, reforms his arm.  His weapon returns to his hand as Barry blasts the necromancer into the portal.

 

_ Where  _ did the cat go?

 

Most of the cultists are dead now, bodies lying limp on the ground.  Only their strongest members remain to fight-- holed up in corners, blasting spells and casting buffs and struggling to live another day.  (They won’t.)

 

Kravitz takes a hit from an axe and reaps another soul and hears a squeal of pain.  He spins, scythe at the ready, and sees Caleb.

 

Sees Caleb as he is hit with a spell that Barry deflects off of his scythe, sees the cat rise and then fall, all the life and vigor and annoyingness and brilliance of the little gray cat that Angus named is dead.

 

Kravitz growls.  He swears that cat is going to be the death of him.

 

\---------------------------------------

 

The reapers make short work of the last of the cult, fueled by anger and spite.  They rush in unison to Caleb’s side.

 

“He’s dead,” Lup confirms after a moment.  “Well. Uh. Fuck.”

 

Barry looks over at Kravitz, seems to size him up.  “You really love Taako, right?”

 

“...right.”

 

“And Taako loves this cat, right?”

 

“...right?”

 

(Kravitz is very confused, but Lup is grinning in a very self-satisfied way.)

 

“So if I were to do something  _ mildly  _ illegal, you’d be fine with it, because it’s for Taako, right?”

 

“Um... right?”

 

“He just doesn’t wanna see it,” says Lup, and pulls Kravitz to his feet.  He lets his flesh melt back on.

 

“Lup, what--”

 

“Go stand in the corner, Skeletor.”  She forces him away from Barry and Caleb’s dead body, pulls him to the other side of the cave.

 

“Don’t call me--”

 

“Taako calls you that.”

 

“Yes, but Taako--”

 

From behind Kravitz, there’s a smug little meow.

 

\---------------------------------------

“Hey, Bones,” says Taako when he gets home, dropping his heels and hat at the door.  “Missed you.”

 

“You too,” Kravitz replies, kisses him.  (He misses Taako every second they’re apart.)  “I, uh. A bit of... bad news from work?”

 

Taako’s instantly nervous.  “Oh, fuck, Lulu fucked up. Or Barold.  Or...”

 

“No, no, nothing like that,” he rushes to assure his boyfriend.  “I, um. Um.”

 

“C’mon, spill it,” he says, moving past Kravitz and into the kitchen.  “You ruined your coffee maker in the break room?”

 

“Uh, no.  Um, Caleb decided to join us today.  And, uh...”

 

Caleb prances out of the living room.

 

“Holy fuck, Krav!” shouts Taako, sounding delighted.  “We’ve got a  _ skeleton cat _ ! I thought necromancy was illegal!”

 

“I, um, technically...”

 

Kravitz never finishes his sentence, because Taako’s already pulled him in for a kiss.

  
  



End file.
